


skin effect

by balphesian



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:32:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balphesian/pseuds/balphesian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc spars Stacker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	skin effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brodinsons (aeon_entwined)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeon_entwined/gifts).



> Edited into shape! For Kay's tremendous prompt: _With the Hong Kong Shatterdome on its last legs and drift compatible pilots thin on the ground, Stacker and Herc take the matter into their own hands to demonstrate what real drift compatibility looks like for the would-be rangers who are too single-mindedly focused on beating their potential partners rather than initiating a physical dialogue with them._

News flies fast in the Shatterdome, so the minute _Pentecost is fighting Herc Hansen_ leaves someone's mouth, people have snatched their coats off tables and chairs and are racing flat-out up to the Kwoon to watch. The next time Herc breaks for a drink of bottled water, he sees fifty—sixty?—people crammed into the corners and crevices of the hall, looking at him sweat with the kind of rapt attention he'd always felt a little uncomfortable with, even in the RAAF.

His throat works around the water as he chugs it, nearly half the bottle, sees Stacker out of the corner of his eye doing the same; uses the opportunity to glance around the room at the faces chattering away in the lull between spars, hushed whispers and grins and looks of disbelief, like this is anything special— _shut up and watch, this never happens_ , and yeah, Herc supposes it’s pretty rare these days; Gottlieb’s predictive model had been lining up nicely with the increase in kaiju attacks, like maybe it was accurate, and he hadn’t had the time to put in a match with anyone other than Chuck, and those are never limited to the Kwoon. The move to Hong Kong hadn’t been particularly forgiving, either, but when the world’s about to end, you take what you can get.

He hadn't bet on a crowd, but maybe Stacker had. He’s always had this superhuman ability to gauge things before they happen, instinctually, like he can smell it, and he's probably going to turn this into a learning opportunity, like he does with pretty much everything else—and Herc doesn't mind, not exactly, but he catches himself trying to straighten up and set an example before he remembers to just let go, let all the pretense slip through his fingers like dust. He's not trying to impress anyone. It isn't about showing off. He does this because it’s expected of him, because he’s a Ranger, a teacher. God, he’ll never work out why people look up to him, he can’t even look himself in the eye most days, what makes anyone think he’s worth staring at?

Mako and a few other academy grads had been at the fore of the Kwoon before the bulk of the crowd had arrived; her tablet is tucked under one arm, eyes sharp like scalpels, had been dissecting their forms and stances like Geiszler does when he’s elbow deep in some bloodless organ cross-section, cataloguing every movement for later use against a lesser opponent—and they're all lesser opponents, Herc’s seen her simulation scores and pities the moron who picks a fight with her, pities anyone qualified to be her equal even more. Her gaze hasn't wavered, but there's a curious quirk to the side of her lips that looks a little like pride; Stacker nods at her, almost imperceptibly, and the quirk turns into a flash of a smile, an encouragement. When she nods back, it’s more of a bow. It’s all very sweet. Respectful.

Herc pushes the pulsing ache out of his chest, if Chuck did that with him it’d be fucking bizarre, and focuses on getting himself rehydrated, pushes the water down his throat and into his stomach, and speak of the devil; he catches a familiar sprout of hair shoving through the bodies near the door and makes sure to keep his eyes front and center. Chuck won’t want him to know he’s looking, Chuck usually leaves before the end anyway, doesn’t want to be caught out watching.

The chatter dies the instant Stacker opens his mouth.

"Since you're all expecting a show," he says, commanding every scrap of attention, "I want you to watch _closely_. Learn from this. Drift compatibility is not about dominance, it's about negotiation; treat it like a discussion you'll never win. Don't force it. Ranger Hansen?"

Herc snorts at the formality, but he inclines his head. Stacker's mouth tugs, barely there, and he glances over to Mako. "Miss Mori, if you please." 

Mako slides out her tablet and resets the tally. 

Zero-zero.

Herc sets down the water bottle and picks up the hanbō. Stacker always said: you don't learn how to Drift. You learn how to let it happen.

He’s probably—no, absolutely—the best Drifter of them all, able to connect with just about anyone, able to let the Drift take him where he needs to go, able to weather whatever’s thrown at him and sink it deep where it can’t hurt. Once you let all your shame go, all your walls come down like melting ice. The water seeps in, floods in, and it's a gentle sort of ocean in there, in Stacker's brain—and Herc, in a little boat on top of it, just trying to keep his head above the waves. That had been the first time. A sea, that had been it, like—a sea sloshing around inside a grown man’s skull, and Herc had never expected his first time to ever be so smooth.

There had been others, obviously, but—the first time, Herc laughs about it now, you always look back and laugh about shit like this—but nobody ever forgets their first time. Even before Scott, before anyone else, before Herc knew what the neural tech even was beyond specs in the Sydney break room when they’d been considering him for the program, before he’d jumped in to Jaeger-jockey for anyone who’d have him, he’d put his brain in Stacker Pentecost’s hands. Trust given before it was earned, a hell of a leap of faith.

It had been Stacker's idea. The first Drift, the one that got Herc settled. Got him comfortable with Scott. Then again, when Chuck had graduated. Young people don't react well to their heads getting split open and rifled through, don't want anybody seeing inside and knowing their fears, and Chuck—he'd had it worse, he'd had it so much worse, the way kids aren’t supposed to have it. Herc had been circling the topic of Drifting with him like a zookeeper on the outskirts of the tiger's cage, nothing to guard against the teeth of it. You get comfortable with him, he'll get comfortable, Stacker had said. Kids don't want to go into something their parents are scared to do. They need some kind of anchor, something to hold onto while they get their footing. Just because you're Drift-compatible doesn't mean it'll be easy. It'll be one of the hardest things you'll ever have to do. 

Herc had—almost, unwisely—protested that Chuck didn't see him that way, probably wouldn't ever, and that was all right, he'd made his peace with that. Stacker had looked at him and shaken his head and said, you're the only thing he's got, and you aren't permanent. Don't take that for granted. 

Herc had bit down hard with the effort not to yell that he hadn't taken anything for granted all his goddamn life, but he'd held it in, kept it all behind his teeth and under his tongue like an adult, the one he pretends to be. Chuck had enough Hansen fury inside for the both of them. Made no sense to waste it on good advice.

The first time he'd Drifted with Chuck, it had been like trying to keep him from drowning, and Herc had realized belatedly that that was what Stacker had done for him—you learn how to swim, but you can't escape the water; you learn how to weather it, not how to control it. Chuck had grasped the concept, Herc had taught, had learned along the way, like parents do. They're stronger now, as a team—one of the strongest—but there's anger there too, the kind that sizzles and burns through his neurons like acid, and sometimes Herc misses the cool fluidity of Stacker's mind, like a refreshing drink where you can feel it go down into your stomach before it warms to body temperature. Chuck is all solar flares and hot coals and it's exhausting to keep walking on them, even when you've got your armor on; the Icarus that kept going because he didn't know what falling meant, doesn't even know the definition of the word. Chuck will never realize he's flying on borrowed wings.

Sparring with Stacker is the next best thing. Like dipping a toe back into the bay. It's easy. Natural. Familiar. Herc loves his son, but he Drifted with Stacker first.

He slides into his preferred stance, the stick diagonal to the line of his body. Like Stacker, he'd trained in yīnshǒugùn and bōjutsu and kenjutsu, Shaolin and Japanese stick and sword-fighting—forms which their instructors had modified somewhat, devising a system of mixed martial arts with which to help the body maintain fluidity and stability while engaged in the Drift, hooked into the Conn-Pod like copper needles in potatoes. He remembers what Sifu Gāo had taught him when he'd first joined the Jaeger Academy: _Pay attention to your body. Feel what you are first, then engage your environment. The stick is an extension of yourself, as your Jaeger will be. You are your weapon._

He tries to push his surroundings out of his head, pictures the calmness of a mirror-flat lake, a cool draft. A cloudless, Drift-blue sky, looking out into the Pacific. Stacker, across from him, hanbō held out parallel to the line of his body. His muscles corded up like wire under his guinea tank, eternally controlled, a coiled spring made of barbs and thorns. Two people. One whole. This is about making a connection, maintaining it: a sizzle of electricity between two Tesla coils.

Herc lets the air out of his chest, and then back in, letting it settle in his diaphragm. All the eyes he feels on his skin fall away like leaves in the breeze. He is present.

The Kwoon seems to draw a collective breath. Then Herc moves.

Their sticks crack together once-twice-three times four-five-six times in quick succession, Stacker moving forward on the balls of his feet, Herc moving back, defending, seven-eight-nine-ten matching Stacker step for step; he sees an opening, takes it, knowing Stacker will block, feels it vibrate up his forearms and into his sternum, moves forward three steps, eleven-twelve-thirteen, the three that he'd lost; knows where to strike, where Stacker where see him and deflect his attack, fourteen-fifteen, and then Stacker whips the hanbō up under Herc's extended arm, knocks the stick from his grasp, steps forward and locks his knee with a leg, pressed together all along Herc's left side—hot through the tank, through the sparring trousers, sweat sticking them together—and Herc catches the smallest of smirks curling Stacker's mouth before he’s dumped bodily onto the mat.

"One point to zero, Marshal Pentecost," Mako says, voice echoing serenely, but Herc can barely hear her amusement over the claps and hoots ricocheting throughout the Kwoon, a wash of appreciative noise.

Herc chances a look around before he accepts the hand offered, grasps it tightly and gets back to his feet. He catches Chuck staring at him with an unidentifiable look on his face, something rough-edged, torn between satisfaction and disappointment; he'd moved next to Mako at the Kwoon anterior, arms crossed, Max's leash trailing down from one fist. The dog is sat panting at his heel. Mako doesn’t bend to scratch between his ears. She nudges his flank with a toe. Chuck isn’t looking.

Herc avoids his gaze, lands on Mako's delighted face instead; it's not about showing off, he reminds himself, he doesn't need to prove himself to anyone, least of all to his own son. 

Stacker claps him on the shoulder. "Again," he says. 

Exhale, inhale. Don’t think about Chuck or Mako. Don’t think about anyone. A different starting form. _You are your weapon._ Herc's world narrows down to him and Stacker, just the two of them on a glass ocean; don't let it crack, don’t fall in. Pay attention. The currents in the air move before Stacker does, and Herc's arms come up automatically to block the strike, and it rattles down his shoulders to his hips and thighs, absorbing the impact and dispersing it into the rest of his body. He sweeps up with the opposite end of the stick, clack-clack-clack-one-two-three-four-again-again-again-again and again and he sees an opening and takes it before his brain knows what his body is doing; Stacker goes down and Herc follows him there, pinning him to the mat with his thighs bracketing Stacker's neck and the hanbō inches from the center of his forehead. 

_Point._

"One-one," Mako says, and the Kwoon roars with cheering.

Herc allows himself to breathe. The muscles in his inner thighs squeeze next to Stacker's ears, and Stacker’s jaw lifts, an inch of neck uncovered. He taps the mat with his palm and Herc stands up, feeling his joints creak in his knees and hips. Too old for this. Way too fucking old for any of this. He extends a sweaty hand and Stacker takes it. Two Tesla coils. 

"Again," he parrots dryly, too dry, maybe, like his throat’s gone raw, and Stacker actually chuckles.

Herc waits until Stacker has settled back into his beginning stance, walking the perimeter of the mats with the stick tucked up under his elbow. Stacker’s eyes follow him, tracking his movement; Herc can feel it heavy on his skin, a gaze that isn’t so much an assessment as an undressing, a flaying right down to the red muscle, the seeping tissue, the old bones underneath. He lets Stacker coat him in it before settling into a stance, rock solid and defensive, _come here_ , inviting him in to make the first move. 

There is no first move.

They spring into action simultaneously, like bullets from opposing pistols, smashing together in midair and compacting into one fluid form, hanging there by the force of its own rotation. There are no openings because they don’t allow them to happen; every move forward is matched by a move backward. Herc feels his mind reach out, looking for Stacker’s in the air between them, not finding it, but feeling it; it wants the Drift, it needs the connection, but Herc focuses back into the physicality of the conversation, makes himself click into alignment, feels it echo in his marrow with each blow of the hanbō, one-two, one-two, one-two-three-four, circling each other like predators after the same prey. Five minutes. Herc feels the sweat pooling in the small of his back and the insides of his thighs, hot and prickling, a distraction; he acknowledges it, doesn’t let it inform his decisions. Clack-clack-clack, pause, sweep, Herc’s knees go up as Stacker slings the hanbō underneath him—a block, a parry, Herc wants Stacker’s hands on him, some kind of contact that’s skin, not hard oak; _Christ, no,_ and he barely knocks away the attack coming in on his left, breathes like the wind’s been gutted out of him.

Ten minutes and he’s really starting to feel it; his muscles are screaming at him to rest for one second, just one, just a fucking one, but he doesn’t let himself slow down. They’ve parted somewhat in exertion, their moves not as rapid-fire, keeping a distance before reengaging, longer pauses between strikes, but their intent is still twisted round each other, and the Kwoon is dead silent save for the harshness of their breathing and the staggered smack of wood on wood. Herc hasn’t pushed himself this hard since he’d joined the damn program, and he knows Stacker’s been slacking a little on his end, too; he’d been wrapped in uniform, in diplomatic negotiations, in pills, no time to dedicate to perfecting his Drift compatibility, what would be the point? Herc thrusts himself back into the moment, looking for a weak spot in Stacker’s defense, something to poke at with a sharp fingernail and pierce through.

If it were anyone else, he’d be vicious. With Chuck, he’d—he’d want to teach him a lesson, to throw him onto the mat and _win_ , because it’s different with them, their kind of compatibility isn’t anything to do with this, it’s warped, and it works. Herc knows that’s not the way; God, he knows that, it’s not the way he’d ever wanted, but with Stacker, he doesn’t have to bare his teeth like an animal. He just has to open his mouth, and—speak. 

It’s a fucking long dialogue, but it says something that they haven’t lost their audience. Maybe he feels a little satisfied about that; maybe that’s a nice feeling, a _victorious_ feeling. 

No, it’s more than that—all right, fine, Herc’s not sure what it is, but he’s in it, like the eye of the hurricane. There’s no getting out without getting swept up, so he submits himself to a another offensive barrage of attacks, defending for five steps—then two forward, returning the offense, bringing it down _hard_ with a deafening crack, feeling it thrash its way through his nerves. Stacker lets it slide off the end of his stick, comes back with the opposite end, and Herc has to force himself to block. He grunts with the exertion of keeping himself on the move. His skin is vibrating with pain.

He pushes past it. He pushes _with_ it. He can feel it echoed in Stacker’s labored breathing, the beads of sweat on his cheeks and temples. They’re connected through their pain, their breath, they’re synced up like they’re one person. Compatibility isn’t about winning. It’s about giving yourself over. It’s—it’s about willingly—Herc thrusts forward, intentionally off the mark.

Stacker takes the opening, shoves Herc around and gets an arm around his neck. A second of breath against his ear, lips at the curve of his jaw, so slight it could’ve been a mistake, probably is. Herc stumbles into his grip, surrenders to it with a growl and grimace, but Stacker pulls away before Mako can call the score, has his fingers dug deep into the meat of Herc’s shoulder.

“You see,” Stacker announces, trying to get his breath back, speaking to the still-silent room, “Ranger Hansen purposefully opened himself up to attack, because he trusted me. This is what Drift compatibility looks like. He won, not by winning, but by putting his faith in his partner. This is what you need to learn to do if you ever want to become the best pilot you can be. Follow Hansen’s example, and you’ll do just fine.”

Herc sucks in air, chest heaving, and shakes his head. The heat of Stacker’s palm is a brand against his skin. “Don’t sell yourself short. Learned from the best.”

Stacker squeezes once and then lets go. “I’m not in the habit of selling anything short.”

A snort echoes from the fore of the Kwoon. Herc doesn’t need to see him to know that Chuck’s refusing—on principle—to take Stacker’s advice, thinks his dad’s a fucking joke, he’s probably right, in a sliver of a way. Herc’s too busy fighting back a dizzy spell to pay him the attention he wants; he wipes at his forehead, grabs the almost-empty water bottle and downs the rest, doesn’t look at anyone, but feels all the eyes come crashing back down, each one a needle prick into flesh. He’s still buzzing, but it’s so loud against his skull that it’s hard to focus on anything—there’s something there, itching to get out, reach out with gray matter and sinews and nerve cells.

“That’s about all the demonstration I’m up for,” he says wearily.

Stacker nods. “All right, ladies and gents. Show’s over. Get back to work.”

The bodies packed into the Kwoon take a moment to shake out of it, but they disperse, one by one, stealing awed, envious glances back into the center of the room. Chuck’s gone by the time Herc chances a look over, but Stacker’s speaking to Mako, heads bowed together; Herc takes his opportunity, places his hanbō back on its rack, tosses the bottle into the bin by the door, and walks out with the rest of the crowd. 

Later, he’s exhausted, Stacker finds him ambling back from LOCCENT, stops him in the empty hall. He’s back in his greatcoat, tie knotted with precision, no wrinkles in his shirt, tall and rigid like the CO he’s supposed to be, all Marshal, post-Ranger. Herc crushes the stab in his chest with the heel of his boot, refuses to let it come back and paw at him. He’s better than that, he knows better.

“Shouldn’t let your guard down, Herc,” Stacker murmurs, gravel and shards of sharp metal, and it’s nothing to do with sparring, of _course_ he knows, he always does, the bastard. All Herc wants to do is fuck him until they can’t remember what they’re here for. Find a dark space somewhere and touch their skin together until all the pieces fit like they should, but never will.

“Yeah, well,” he says, frayed a bit on the edges. “Like I said. Learned from the best.”

Stacker doesn’t laugh. Stacker leans in and presses their mouths together, chaste, and Herc grabs his skull in his hands, pulls him close and bites into the flesh of his lip. Stacker turns it soft again, runs a soothing hand up the length of Herc’s spine, under his jacket, like calming a wild animal—that’s the last thing he goddamn needs, something soft that gives, instead of the hard wall of something he can hurt himself slamming against. You have a shot, you take it. He could do with a few broken bones right now. 

They separate. Herc lets his hands fall back to his sides and pretends they aren’t stinging from blows exchanged hours earlier.

“There’s time enough for that later,” Stacker says, in the kind of voice that gets men to agree with him. There’s a lie in there, though, a sharp one; time is a luxury nobody’s had since K-Day. They can’t spare the extra emotion. Shouldn’t dwell on it, shouldn’t be testing it. “Right,” says Herc, knowing that completely, and understanding it. “Big day tomorrow, eh? I’ll see you then.”

“Get some rest,” Stacker says. 

Herc hasn’t had a night’s full in a long damn time, but tonight, at least, he’ll go to sleep thinking about the sea, and that’s close enough.


End file.
